World champs Gushue, Homan bounce back at Olympic trials

OTTAWA — Brad Gushue was frustrated, almost at a loss to explain what had just happened, after his team dropped its first game Saturday night at the Canadian Olympic curling trials.

By Sunday afternoon, the reigning men’s world champion was singing a much different tune after grinding out a 6-5 extra-end win over Brendan Bottcher.

Gushue had to draw the button with his last rock in the extra end to get the win and he made a perfect shot to improve his team’s record to 1-1 in what is shaping up to be an epic battle of a tournament.

“It’s a whole lot better,” Gushue said. “(Saturday) night was frustrating, the way we finished that game, but to come back today, it was pretty solid. I felt we really controlled the game. I still think we have another notch to bring it up.”

Earlier in the day, 2014 Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs was in the same position as Gushue. He needed an open draw — all he needed was full eight-foot — to beat Kevin Koe in an extra end, but he was way too heavy and wound up losing 8-6.

Gushue felt for Jacobs and wanted to make sure he didn’t do the same thing.

“The guys knew that was what I wanted,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than them doing everything they can to leave it for you and missing it. I felt like draw weight was in my back pocket there. It’s a confidence boost and I do like the step we took today.”

“You never really expect to steal the extra,” said Koe, who went to 3-0 with a 6-4 extra-end win over Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers later Sunday.

“You just want to make him shoot, really, and he never missed all game, so that was uncharacteristic for him. I don’t think he misses that shot very often and we’re just lucky it was against us. It’s been a while since I can remember someone needing full eight against us and missing.”

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen also improved to 2-0 with a 3-1 win over John Morris of Vernon, B.C.

“It was kind of workmanlike,” McEwen said. “For us to hold a lead like that, low-scoring game, that’s not something you’d see a lot from us. That felt really good to be able to win a game like that.”

Bottcher is 1-1 after he beat Steve Laycock 8-6 in the morning and lost to Gushue in the afternoon.

On the women’s side, Ottawa’s Rachel Homan rebounded from an opening-draw loss to Chelsea Carey by beating Woodstock Ont.’s Julie Tippin 8-7 in an extra end.

Homan led 7-3 at one point but gave up steals in the eighth, ninth and 10th ends.

That made for a nervous extra end for Homan and the hometown crowd, but the skip made the game-winning draw with her last rock.

“We were sharper in this game,” said Emma Miskew, Homan’s third.

“Yeah we had a lead, but when they’re putting their draws in good spots, we have to either go for it or try to peel the ends out and it’s hard to do that consistently. It’s tough to clear all the rocks. It made for a close game.

“We’re always looking to be tied coming home with hammer. That’s the ideal spot for us. If we could guarantee that every game we’d be really happy and that’s what we were.”

Homan twice tried difficult in-off shots, looking to put the game away, but just missed and gave up steals of one. It made for an interesting scoreboard — Tipping recorded four straight ones — but none were all that costly.

“We took a little bit of risk,” Homan said. “There was only one of them we had to make and we did. It was a really great team win.”

Jennifer Jones, the reigning Olympic champion, beat Michelle Englot 8-5 in a battle of Winnipeg teams, and then hammered Allison Flaxey of Toronto 10-5 to improve to 3-0. The only other undefeated teams on the women’s side are Chelsea Carey of Calgary and Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta. Both are 2-0.

Jones got off to a rocky start in the trials by giving up a steal of three in the first end of the first game. However, her team rebounded to win that one on Saturday and looked much sharper on Sunday.

“We were obviously disappointed with giving up a three in the first end of the Olympic trials,” Jones said. “But we ended well and I thought we played really good today. It’s better to take three like we did today than to give up a steal of three in the first end for sure. I like that way better.”

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